


In An Instant

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, MFMM Year of Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 10:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11781036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: The first time Jack sees Rosie Sanderson, she’s stopped by the station to see her father and Jack genuinely forgets to breathe for a good fifteen seconds.A(nother) fic for the August trope challenge.





	In An Instant

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was discussing this month's trope and was reminded that I wrote a short little ficlet like... well over a year ago, and I never really had a place for it, and out of curiosity I dug it up. And found that I actually really liked it, and it fit the trope even though I have serious questions about the viability of such a setup. So apparently that meant I had to post it.

The first time Jack sees Rosie Sanderson, she’s stopped by the station to see her father and Jack genuinely forgets to breathe for a good fifteen seconds. One of the other men, a senior constable, young enough to be his peer but more experienced, just shakes his head.

“Inspector’s daughter,” he says. “Never going to give the time of day to blokes like us.”

But she had smiled at Jack, Jack is certain she did. And when she comes in again and again, he thinks that maybe there’s something to it. He can’t really hope--he knows that he’s still a boy from Richmond, no matter how much his parents had scrimped and saved to get him an education--but still. He watches and he learns; Miss Sanderson has a sly smile and a gentle laugh and all sorts of sharp edges that could bash his heart into a million pieces. She’s smart--one day they spend half his desk shift talking about literature while she waits for her father to finally emerge from his meetings--and she’s funny and she’s determined.

“Perhaps we could, perhaps, go... “ he stumbles over his words, forgets what he had meant to say. “That is to say, I think you’re…”

She smiles at him, soft and observant, and lays her hand on top of his; her fingers are warm and he realises that she’d removed her gloves at some point in their discussion.

“I’m afraid Father would have a fit, Jack,” she says, and the sound of his Christian name on her lips is so intense he’s half in love by the end of the syllable.

“I understand,” Jack says, because he does; their spheres are too far apart, and he would never ask her to fall into his. He may as well ask a star to fall to earth.

And so it goes, for several months; they talk and flirt and sometimes even brush against each other in a myriad of ostensibly innocent ways, but nothing will ever come of it.

\------

One day she comes to visit, asks to go into her father’s office; Jack is the one to wave her through. Ten minutes later he’s making himself tea and thinks of the girl behind the door and makes a second cup. A proper tea set is wishful thinking in a police station--when he runs his own, he thinks, he will manage decent china cups even if the tea is still awful--but he does what he can to make it right and brings it through on a tray.

She’s standing with a  wastepaper basket, shaking as she vomits.

He sets the tray aside, escorts her to a chair, places the cup of tea unobtrusively beside her. Then he steals a biscuit from her father’s stash and offers her the tin.

“You’re brave,” she manages to joke.

“And you’re ill,” Jack observed. “These are plain enough that they may help settle your stomach.”

Tears make her eyes bluer, he notices, and wishes he hadn’t.

“Not ill,” she says. She blushes furiously, realising what her admission implies and that he is clever enough to realise too. “I--”

“Do you--”

They pause, then laugh together.

“Ladies first,” Jack says, tilting his head to look at her. She’s so beautiful, even pale and shaken as she is.

“I’m afraid I’ve left you with a rather large secret to bear,” she said quietly.

“Surely it cannot be that bad,” Jack said. “You would not be the first bride to have a bonnie babe earlier than expected.”

“No wedding bells for me,” Rosie says, and Jack wonders whether punching the cad who has fathered her child would be overstepping the bounds of their friendship.

“Does your father know?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet.”

Jack likes George Sanderson; George has taken him under his wing, shown him how to be a good police officer. But he does have a temper; Jack cannot imagine it inflicted upon Rosie without a buffer. And he finds himself in one of those moments when his entire life could change in an instant.

“Miss Sanderson,” he says, taking her clammy hand in hers. “Rosie, even. I will marry you, if you’ll have me. I don’t have much, but my prospects are good and I work hard. And you would never need to fear my recriminations or chastisement. I would love this child as my own.”

“Why would you do that, Jack?” she asks.

“Because I care for _you_ ,” he says, wishing he had someone else’s words with which to make his speech, perfect words. But his world is spinning nearly off its axis and all he can think is that he loves her, has loved her for months, and he thinks that she might care for him as well.

“Father might ruin your career for this,” she said quietly.

“Let him,” Jack said, feeling unexpectedly bold. “I’ll find another.”

  
\------

It’s a small wedding. A small house. A small baby, born three months into the marriage and never taking a breath. It’s holding his Rosie while she sobs, promising her there will be other chances, when she is ready. It’s love and laughter and silly arguments over all the little things they had never learnt about each other before their vows were exchanged. And they are happy, until the news of war comes. It is another moment where his life could change in an instant, and as he signs his name on the enlistment form it does.


End file.
